This is a children’s book and a great deal shorter than most of the other books on my reading list. I say it makes up for those Asimov books which are long and dry. Of course, I haven’t finished those yet. This is sort of similar to Ella Enchanted. It’s about the youngest princess in the family and her fairy godmother grants her the gift of being ordinary, and so she’s not as pretty, or blond, or dainty as the other princesses and she runs away and has adventures and falls in love with an ordinary king. Love it 🙂

17. Snow White, Blood Red – Edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

This is a collection of stories that are re-tellings of fairy tales, but fairly adult. I read them originally when I was pretty young, 14ish, and it was the first thing I read that was at all naughty and grown-up. There is a retelling of Rapunzel in here that had morphed and grown into something totally different in my mind, it was interesting to go back and read it over a decade later. My mind version is better, by the way.

18. Witches Abroad – Terry Pratchett, read by Nigel Planer

One of my favorites, I love the witches. This is a send up of all fairy tales sort of mashed into one, plus some voodoo and New Orleans style magic. A very fun <del>read</del> <i>listen</i>.

19. Small Gods – Terry Pratchett, read by Nigel Planer

This one was OK. I found myself having to make a very concerted effort to pay attention. It’s not that I didn’t like the ideas, and parts of it were quite good. This is set many, many years before the main events of the discworld series, and in that sense it was interesting. But it’s basically a buddy movie of a guy and his pet God.

20. Lords and Ladies – Terry Pratchett read by Nigel Planer

Back to the witches yay! This may be my favorite book so far. The story is more fully realized and well-plotted than the others. The characters are just as well done as before, but the story is strictly fantasy, there’s no technological invention driving it. It’s spoofs Midsummer Night’s Dream a bit, and it’s basically a reflection on youth, age, and lives not lived. But… it’s Terry Pratchett, which is to say it’s done so with a lot of jokes, and people who can’t be having with that sort of nonsense.

OK, so this is now caught up to where I am. It’s week 21, and I am currently reading books 21, 22 and 23, so I’m in a good place. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, there’s basically 2 weeks of buffer built in, and I’d like to get to the place where I’m 2 weeks ahead anyway, because it’s going to take me a long time to get through both those Asimov books. They’re not just long, they’re dry!